Hwange Local Board has lost a five-year legal battle to dismiss its former chief executive officer and town secretary, Ndumiso Madlalose, and has been ordered to reinstate him, with full benefits.
Labour Court president Selo Nare ordered on May 16 that Madlalose be reinstated effective last month.
Mdlalose was dismissed on October 1 in 2007 for alleged misconduct and he approached the Labour Court contesting the dismissal which he argued was irregular.
“I will order that it (the local authority) pays his salary and benefits from the time of his suspension (May 31 2007) to the 30th of April (2011). Thus should be paid even if respondent decides to suspend the applicant pending the disciplinary hearing,” reads Nare’s judgment.
Newsday could however not establish how much Madlalose was owed by the council as the court ordered the parties to do the quantification out of court. But, the money is believed to be running into thousands of dollars.
Board chairman Cosmas Ndlovu confirmed the latest development last week and said Madlalose had resumed work on June 1.
“Yes, he started work on June 1. The council voted to reinstate him. He is a community man who is supposed to work for the people and we agreed that spending time in the courts will not help service delivery,” said Ndlovu.
“He also decided that spending time talking about his benefits will slow development and agreed that it would be paid as and when money becomes available,” said Ndlovu.
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“I can’t say what the figure is. You know we are a small council. We are not as big as Bulawayo so we don’t pay much. Some of the money was in Zimbabwean dollars. The United States dollar regime only started in 2009,” he said.
Ndlovu said the council had set up a team to come up with a payment plan to propose to Madlalose until they cleared the outstanding dues.
Madlalose could not be reached for comment.
The matter has been pending before Labour Court president Nare since 2007 with applications and counter-applications being filed in court and successive disciplinary hearings held.
